Banged up: how I survived the horror of women's prison

Netflix hit Orange is the New Black dramatises life in a women’s prison; meanwhile, two British women accused of drug smuggling await their fate in a Peruvian jail. Lotte Jeffs talks to a former prisoner who swapped the glamorous world of fashion for slopping out

My first night in Holloway Prison was hell. I was in a cell with a crazy woman who picked off her toenails and put them in my tea mug. The wind screamed through the windows — the glass had been smashed out in riots and the gaps were stuffed with loo roll and books from the library. There were people screaming and it was terrifying. There was a bucket to pee in, and at 5am I was told to ‘slop out’ — when you throw out the contents of the bucket. There was a small sink with a dribble of cold water. I got a glob of porridge in the morning that I had to eat with ‘toenails lady’ in my cell.

I’d ended up at London’s notorious women’s prison in the early 1970s after 17 hours of interrogation at Heathrow. I had smuggled £25,000 worth of Thai sticks (cannabis) back from Thailand in a suitcase with a secret compartment I’d had made in Singapore. I’d agreed to be a mule for a guy who promised me £5,000. I insisted that I take my boyfriend along on the trip, but that he wouldn’t be involved in smuggling. I felt very confident and made it through Customs fine. As I was leaving I looked behind and my boyfriend was getting frisked. The idiot had a tiny amount of weed in his pocket and, when asked, he said he was travelling with me. I was in the line for a taxi when I felt a hand on my shoulder. The police emptied my case and picked it up; it was still heavy. They got a crowbar and cracked the bottom open. ‘Oh my God, I didn’t know that was there. I’ve been set up!’ I said. They took me in to see my boyfriend. ‘It’s all over, darling,’ he said. He’d told them everything, the bastard.

I was in Holloway for two horrendous weeks before I made bail, thanks to my boyfriend’s parents. I was a 22-year-old fashion designer, blonde, pretty and posh, but surprisingly I wasn’t hassled by the other inmates. I had befriended a big Chinese Triad woman called Cindy, who had also been busted on a drugs deal and hence liked me. She protected me.

I got moved after that hideous first night into a cell with a sweet young girl. She was in for shop-lifting. I also befriended a woman who was a member of the Angry Brigade, a group of anarchic feminists, and we played chess all the time. She had struck up a friendship with Myra Hindley and introduced me. I was too young to have really known what Hindley had done, but in that environment you don’t judge people in the same way. You’re all convicts. Hindley was scary, though — her cell walls were covered with pictures of children and she had these black, black eyes.

Hindley was having a scene with one of the screws, who ended up in prison herself because of it. I got a come-on from a warden once myself. There was a water shortage at the time and you were only allowed a bath once a week in an inch of water. The warden came in and she just sat there watching me. There wasn’t much I could do about it. Most of them were into women; that’s why they did the job.

Every night you’d get given this drug called chloral [hydrate]. You had just enough time to get back to your cell before it knocked you out. You could have refused it, but everyone wanted to be able to go to sleep without thinking.

Once out on bail, it was eight months before I went to court. During that time I knew I was going down, but day-to-day I got on with my life. I was working on a fashion collection, and was the type of person who thought, ‘Well, it’s an experience.’ Once convicted I got sent to Askham Grange, a low-security jail in North Yorkshire.

I was allowed to take four changes of outfit with me. At the time dungarees were fashionable — I took a striped pair of OshKosh, a blue denim pair, a pair of jeans and a special outfit for visits. I planned it perfectly — my convict wardrobe. The open prison was this incredible stately home that had been given to the Home Office after, legend had it, the owners’ son had committed suicide by riding a white horse through the ballroom’s massive window.

There were 120 prisoners and most were in for drugs. I was in a dorm — we didn’t sleep in locked cells — with five other girls. There was Babs, who had run dope for the Hare Krishna, and Jean, who got set up by her boyfriend smuggling cocaine, so we had a lot in common; Ethel, a lovely old lady who had been a mule for her daughter, and a girl who stole things from Marks & Spencer. I also got on well with Dawn, who had axed her husband in bed.

I made friends instantly and we all had stories to tell. Prison etiquette has it that you only ask someone what they’re in for once you’ve become mates and built up trust. It was like a mad boarding school. You were never locked in and every day there was an absconder. An alarm would go off and we’d all have to line up to find out who it was. They’d always get caught and sent straight to a closed prison.

When you first got to Askham Grange, you had to clean ‘the Burma Road’, the main hall, first thing in the mornings before you did your day job. So there I was at 5.30am, down on my knees, scrubbing — that was my initiation. For your second job you got a choice of gardens, laundry or the kitchen. Jean and I were put in charge of the governor’s garden. Our ‘gov’ was called Swinging Sal. She was in her thirties and drove a sports car. We’d look through the window of her house and there’d be vodka bottles everywhere. We used to fell trees, shovel manure, dig trenches. It was hard work but I loved it.

Jean used to get dope in all the time from her boyfriend. It was brilliant. She would go through her poo with a knife and fork to get the packets out then she’d hide it in her Mary Quant lipstick. In the evenings you could hire out the record player and we’d play David Bowie in the ballroom. In the morning all us stoners would do yoga on the landing.

Once we put on a play for the Home Office. We all had to audition and we had real actors in to teach us. I got the main part of Robinson Crusoe and Jean played my girlfriend. I made the costumes, too — being creative in prison really helped me. I used to draw pretty pictures around inmates’ letters home and they paid me in cigarettes. I never got into trouble with the wardens. If you did, your punishment was not to get paid that week. We got 37p — it would buy you half an ounce of tobacco, some cigarette papers and a letter.

I only once lost face with my fellow inmates, when I squealed excitedly, ‘Mummy and Daddy are coming to visit me on Sunday!’ I really got it for that: ‘Mummy and Daddy! Ha ha!’

I did a year there in all — a third of my sentence. It was really hard to readjust to normal life once I was out. Everyone else had moved on. I was on a lot of drugs in prison, anti-depressants, sleeping pills. But I came out and had nothing. It definitely took a while to get my life back on track. It’s been well over 30 years since I was locked up, and it turns out that time in prison was one of the better ‘bad’ things I’ve experienced. I lost my daughter to cancer four years ago, and that put everything into perspective. Being locked up certainly taught me how to endure the things life throws at you.

I still wonder what happened to all those characters. You’re not allowed to exchange details when you leave, so we haven’t kept in touch. The last I heard one had joined a cult — I guess she missed the routine of prison. Since then I’ve flown first-class and stayed in five-star hotels as a fashion designer, but I’ll never forget my time inside. I’ve experienced the lowest of the low and the highest of the high, and I can get on with everyone under the sun. I don’t ever judge.